THE storm-swelled waters were beginning to recede but the barrier was still in place on the Kings Arms’ door on King’s Staith on Friday night: a weather hazard of the York riverside down the flooded centuries.
That same night – after Wednesday and Thursday’s performances fell foul to cast illness – it was snowing in Havana in Carlos Acosta’s relocation of The Nutcracker to modern-day Cuba.
Snow in Havana? Official records state the only time snow fell in Cuba was in February 1900 in the Sierra Maestra mountain range around Pico Turquino. Not even climate change might change that, but the power of theatrical imagination can.
Cuban-British dance luminary Carlos Acosta CBE, former Royal Ballet favourite, now director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, also directs Acosta Danza in his homeland, where he trained at the National Ballet School of Havana.
His Cuban company is on tour in the dreek UK from October 31 to February 11, turning up the heat on Tchaikovsky/Petipa/Ivanov’s Russian ballet, premiered at the the Mariinsky Theatre, in St Petersburg, Russia, in December 1892.
The story, characters, Christmas setting and transition from house to frosted winter wonderland remain the same, but from set and video designer Nina Dunn’s opening projections of Havana’s Spanish-colonial architecture to Angelo Alberto’s costume designs, from the lush green vegetation to composer and arranger Papa Gavilondo Peon’s Cuban re-boot of Tchaikovsky’s score, Acosta’s Nutcracker evokes Cuba as much as rum, cigars, vintage 1950s’ cars and the Buena Vista Social Club.
For all that Havana detail – even the flamboyantly moustached mask when the Nutcracker comes alive – Acosta’s choreography is essentially classical ballet, rather than modern, making it the least Cuban transition in the show.
Alexander Varona’s mysterious, magical toymaker Drosselmeyer is the ringmaster, conducting Clara’s wide-eyed journey with sleight of hand and a toreador’s sense of dramatics, as familiar scenes play out in new ways, maybe restricted by the Grand Opera House’s narrow stage, but with humour in toys’ movements and enchantment too.
However, the spectacle (aside from the snowfall scene) and drama fall short of Northern Ballet’s celebrated Christmas staple at Leeds Grand Theatre and Act Two loses momentum.
Box office: atgtickets.com/york.